Jack!
by Live-Laugh-Sing
Summary: A oneshot about the after effects of Jack's death. Starts right after he's fallen into the pond. And yes, I cried while writing this.


"Jack!" she screamed. That was the last thing she screamed. Her voice sank to the bottom of the lake with her brother, her hero. The icy water that had taken him from her seemed dark and evil now, unlike mere minutes ago when everything about this lake was joyful. if she looked down she could still see the shadow of her brother slowly sinking to the bottom of the pond.

She couldn't speak, couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Everything seemed to freeze as she stared down into the depths that had stolen her only sibling, along with the only boy in her family. She had always wondered what it felt like to be an only child, and now that she knew the feelings of want and loneliness she would give anything to get him back. A realization crashed down on her like a tidal wave of guilt.

This was her fault. She was the one who dragged Jack to the pond to go skating. He'd wanted to stay and skip rope back at the cottage. She dropped to her knees and cried out in pain, guilt, and longing. This was her idea, and Jack had paid the price.

" _Jack be nimble…" she mumbled._

Three minutes had passed. If, by some miracle Jack was still alive down there, his chest would be burning for the sweet, pine-filled oxygen that would never grace his lungs again. By now his heart would have slowed to a dangerous pace, almost too slow to survive. He would most definitely be unconscious by now. Death would not have taken him yet, but they were shaking hands with each other. There wouldn't be much time until death had taken her brother forever. Not long enough to go find help.

The frigid air and the streaks of tears streaming down the girl's face was starting to turn her skin a light pink. Her eyes were unblinking, staring straight down into the abyss of blackness that was this evil lake. The wind picked up, but no shiver came. She was too numb in both body and mind to notice the drop in temperature.

It was the middle of December, almost Christmas. No one will be willing to retrieve a body until at least late February. Hopefully the lake won't speed up his decomposing. This will be her first Christmas without her brother.

Even Santa can't give her the only thing in the entire world that she wants.

" _...Jack be quick…"_ _she mumbles._

Ten minutes gone. By now her brother is most surely gone, and now the ice over the lake is starting to freeze over again. His spirit will be trapped until the ice melts. The thought makes her wince.

She dragged him down here, and he's going to be stuck here all because she wanted to go skating. He's trapped, with no way out until the ice thaws. She can't even whisper an apology to her newly departed- no, trapped brother.

The snow has been seeping through her dress since she first kneeled down but it doesn't bother her. The only thing she can think of is Jack. He's gone and isn't coming back. Ever again. It's no trick this time.

Her mother will start to worry if the two of them aren't back soon. Little does mother know that only one child will be returning. The waters, so pure when used in church, so clear when used to drink, these waters have taken her mother's son and her brother. The pitch blackness of the lake seems to swallow everything around the girl. She can't decide whether she should stay here until mother comes looking or go tell her now. She decides to wait. Jack deserves at least that.

Her mother will find her there and will need not ask what has happened. The girl isn't even sure she has the voice to say it.

" _...Jack jump over the candlestick," she mumbles._

That rhyme was always Jack's favorite. He could make up new and funny verses to it in mere seconds. Never again will she hear his voice tell of how a boy, also named Jack, could make sport out of candlestick hopping.

Two hours have passed, now. She has long since lost all feeling in her fingers and toes. her nose and ears may as well be gone, as well. She can hear the yells of her mother as the woman tries to find her children. It is dark, now. The temperature has dropped most likely below zero.

Her mother comes over the hill separating the dark, evil lake from the glaringly bright town. The girl's mother comes and sees her, kneeling by the edge of those dark waters. The mother drops to her knees and gives out a powerful cry.

A few moments pass and the mother, while still sobbing over the departure of her 17 year old son, knows that if her eight year old daughter stays out in the cold much longer, then she will have to prepare two funerals instead of just one. The mother stands and picks up the girl, who still stares blankly at the pitch black waters of the evil lake that has stolen her sibling.

The mother carries her back to the cottage where a fire is immediately lit.

The mother starts to wail. The daughter makes no sound.

" _Jack was nimble, Jack was quick…"_

Two months had come and gone. There had been no celebration of Christmas or New Years, and both nights had been eerily quiet. It was now early March, and the ice upon the black waters of the evil lake had melted. When the men had gone under to see if there was any signs of a body left, they came up empty handed- even Jack's clothes had disappeared.

There was no funeral, especially since there was no body to bury. The town held a small service for the boy, but few people bothered to come. They had long since disregarded the mother and daughter as outcasts. Without a man in the house, the women were next to useless. Everyone knew the girl was strange. Hadn't said more than three words at a time since the accident. She would receive glares from some of Jack's friends when she went into town. Just like herself, they blamed her for Jack's death and showed this blame by shoving her down every chance they had.

The mother had become more hermit than person, locking herself away in the cottage day after day. She would talk when in town, and if you came to the cottage she would be a lovely hostess. Aside from that, the mother was even more silent than the daughter.

" _Jack was nimble, Jack was quick, Jack meant to see if the ice was thick."_

The years passed. The mother started to come out of the house more. She seemed to heal every so slowly. For the girl, though, everything seemed to get worse. She stopped speaking entirely and nightmares plagues her every night. These visions were of things like monsters from out of the evil lake pulling Jack and her mother into the lake, leaving her even more alone than she already was. Sometimes it would be a dream of her falling in instead of Jack. Those dreams made her feel better, since it was her fault that Jack had fallen in the first place.

Occasionally, she would have a better dream. Those usually consisted of her and Jack skipping rope, or telling stories, or doing anything other than skating. When she had these dreams she woke up crying, choking back the loud sobs that would bring her mother into the room.

She was an outcast. Half the town hated her for the same reasons she despised herself, and the other half pitied her and thought she was still in mourning when, instead, all she wanted was for one of her old friends to come and talk to her. She wanted interaction, even if she still didn't have the strength to reply. A hug from someone other than her mother, out of anything other than pity. She was tired of pity. She was tired of people who 'understood' that never really had understood. she doesn't have the strength to talk, but that never meant she wouldn't listen. But no one ever spoke to her, and so she never listened.

Eventually, her loneliness reached a point at which she started to have conversations in her head with people who were never there. Jack was one of these people. She would tell him how sorry she was for leading him to his death, and he would console her and hug her like he would when she was younger.

" _The ice was thin, we couldn't tell, and so down, down our poor Jack fell."_

By the time the girl reached the age of 13, she had become very sick. The town doctor had no clues as to what was causing her blood to thin and slow so much. She was getting weaker. He diagnosed her with a broken heart and left.

Still, none of her old friends visited her or spoke to her. Her mother doted upon her like a mother terrified for her child would. They both knew that the end was nearing. The child would still never speak. She tried and tried to sum up the strength to tell her mother how much she loved her or how sorry she was that both children would leave this earth before her.

Then she remembered, how lonely it is after you've lost everything. How loneliness feels. How it felt that day at the lake before her mother found her. The girl knew she didn't want her mother to go through that for as long as the girl had. For even in her shorter life, the girl had found much more pain in silence than anyone should have to endure. She didn't want her mother to end up like that. Like her. Making invisible and imaginary friends because no one else will speak to her. She wanted her mother to know that she would be okay. This gave her strength.

"Mommy!" her voice was small, and airy. She hadn't used it in five years.

The second the older woman heard her daughter's voice she rushed into the room. "What is it? Are you okay?"

"I want you to know that I love you," the girl started. "I have always loved you and will love you even when I'm gone. But you cannot do what I did. Don't lock yourself away after I've left. The pain is worse alone. Find your friends from town. Surround yourself with people who love you and share your pain. Do not sit in silence, for in that silence is a living hell on earth where no one can hear you calling for help or your silent cries of pain."

The mother is crying now.

"Don't mourn me. Remember me. Remember Jack and all we used to do as a family. Do not do to yourself what I did to me. Five years of pain and silence have taught me that nothing is worth your silence. Do not be afraid to move on and start a new family, you are able."

No one realized how sick the daughter actually was. While she was speaking she was slowly falling asleep, never to awaken again. Her last few words were, "I'll tell Jack hi for you. We both love you."

That night the mother fell asleep, for the first time in 22 years, childless.

" _Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. Jack, jump over the candlestick."_

When the girl woke up, it wasn't in the heaven she thought it would be. She woke up by the lake that had claimed her brother. But she didn't know that. She didn't know anything except a title given to her by an entity that called himself the Man in the Moon. That title was that of an Imaginary Friend. She knew that her job was to come to children in their times of loneliness and help them. But that's all she knew.

But she couldn't speak. No imaginary friends can speak.

" _Jack was nimble, Jack was quick. Jack meant to see if the ice was thick."_

300 years have come and gone. Jack remembers his sister well, the games they used to play. But he cannot find a grave for her anywhere in Burgess. He asked North to check the lists from the years he knew her to see if she and his mother ever moved but there was no answer. It was like they both had disappeared.

Flying through the air, riding on the back of the wind, he lands at the pond. This is the pond where he had last seen his sister. All those years ago. He hears the small snap of a twig behind him and turns to see a small figure walking near the edge of the ice. She has brown hair and eyes. There is a certain aura about her. He knows she is a spirit. And he has found his sister.

The girl looks around the lake. This lake always gave her a sense of home. But someone else is here. There is a boy, with white hair and very familiar eyes. He almost looks like...her. Suddenly, a storm of memories, good and bad, cheerful and so many painful, come rushing into her head. Her eyes widen as she looks upon the form of the brother she lost to this very lake so long ago. Water starts to form upon her lashes as she sees the boy she missed for so long. The boy whose death cast her into a never ending silence. The boy who saved her life with a game of hopscotch.

She feels something bubble in her throat. A laugh, maybe? A sob? No. It was a single word. One that would unleash the voice she has been missing since she awoke on this very lake.

She runs toward the white-haired boy and grabs him around the waist while he picks her up and hugs her twice as tightly.

"Jack!"


End file.
